Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is scheduled to suspend commercial air traffic for one hour later this month for an anti-takeover drill. It is reported that the maneuvers would involve members of the Aviation Special Forces Command and Army Airborne Special Forces posing as an invading enemy, with ground troops deployed to repel the simulated takeover attempt.
The drill is to be part of the live-fire component of this year’s Han Kuang military exercises from July 24 to 28. The airport drill has been tentatively set for July 26 and the planned one-hour suspension of air traffic indicates that it would likely last less than that to limit the inconvenience for travelers. All major airlines are to be informed of the event, while an international air traffic broadcast would also be issued.
The drill is significant because it would be the first time this type of exercise has been staged at the airport since it opened in 1979. As a responsive measure to counter the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) growing threat, it puts the principle of “taking military drills to the future battlefield” into practice.
Northern Taiwan is in the military’s “third combat zone” and is a critical point of defense. Of the major airports in northern Taiwan, Taoyuan airport is the nation’s most important, while Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) is a mid-size commercial facility and air base. Only Hsinchu Air Base is a full-time military installation.
From a military defense point of view, Taoyuan airport boasts the advantages of accommodating space for military use, wide runways and close proximity to Taipei. It is not the only air-based gateway into Taiwan, but it is a site of critical military value.
After all, the PLA’s ambition of annexing Taiwan has so far resulted in the deployment of ballistic missiles, helicopters, large military transport aircraft and landing craft. If the PLA were to invade using an amphibious attack or elite operations, Taoyuan airport would be prone to attack in either scenario and become a rendezvous site for troops.
The PLA could launch intensive attacks on military bases in northern Taiwan with surface-to-surface missiles before attacking Taoyuan by deploying amphibious military vessels or civilian boats. China would then use helicopters to transport military personnel and equipment to attack Taoyuan airport. If such a scenario were to happen, it would put the airport’s flexibility and spontaneous response capabilities to the test, and pressure the air defense, anti-tank and anti-infiltration capabilities of Taiwan’s army.
In the strategy to defend Taiwan and Penghu, as long as the army can hold Taoyuan airport, then the PLA’s plan of invading northern Taiwan would be greatly hindered.
Although advanced rehearsal and live-fire drills would inconvenience commercial airline companies and travelers, national security should always come first. To give the national army full support, the public should support the drills and do their part for national defense.
Ray Song is a doctoral student in Tamkang University’s Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies.
Translated by Rita Wang
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS